Pokemon Sword & Shield: 4Chan leak hints at Armored Evolutions

According to a leak on 4Chan, Pokemon Sword and Shield will introduce a new type of evolution called “Armored Evolution”, which ties Meltan into the legendary lore and evolution mechanics. The leak was shared days before the recent Pokemon Direct and has correctly predicted both title names and regional setting.

The full leak is below (✔️ denotes confirmed leaks):

✔️ Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield

✔️ Region is Great Britain

Legendary Pokémon are “metal snake” and “wooden horse”

Armored Evolutions

Armored Charizard, Armored Mewtwo, Armored Flygon, Armored Zeraora…

Meltan ties into Armored Evolution and Legendary lore

Before sharing any thoughts on the matter, we want to be transparent about the nature of 4Chan leaks: their accuracy varies wildly and they often mix fake info with the real leak. If we had to put our money on it, the Armored Evolutions seem correct, while the “wooden horse” legendary seems fake.

Meltan’s involvement in the evolution process is also dubious. Mythical Pokemon often have little to do with the plot and they were never involved into any evolution mechanism. Meltan was the first Mythical Pokemon that can evolve, but we don’t remember any other ties between Pokemon evolution and Mythicals.

Armored Evolutions are an interesting idea tho. Fans are already speculating on how the rumored mechanic could work and some went as far as to create fan art with their vision of a particular Pokemon’s armored evolution (Galar is the region where Sword & Shield take place):

For those interested in more details about the Sword & Shield Galar region and the first trailer we highly recommend watching this in-depth breakdown by GameXplain: